CNN aired its “Walk in the Park” segment on “The Business View with Nina Dos Santos” to showcase various hacking scenarios and the vulnerabilities of public WiFi – whether in a public park setting, hotel, airport, or similar location offering “free” WiFi.

Calling WiFi hacking “extremely easy and readily available” – like a walk in the park – the CNN report shares some eye-opening realities about Internet safety and privacy.

Ever hop onto “Central Park WiFi” (or a similar network in your city)? In this segment that hotspot has been set up by Huff to demonstrate how easy it is to steal personal data over WiFi. How far can a hacker take things? The video shows how simple it is to get information like victims’ Amazon accounts, credit cards, and emails.

Extremely Easy and Readily Available

After all, a public WiFi signal is not private. Without using a personal VPN, anything sent over a public WiFi network goes out in clear text. Anyone else on the WiFi network could easily “sniff” – or spy – using just a few simple software tools.

This is especially problematic because, as the CNN report indicates, people tend to use the same passwords across multiple websites – from email, to online banking, to social media. While two-factor authentication is a helpful weapon against online crooks, it’s simply not enough protection when someone is on a public wireless network.

As CNN (and the world) now knows, protecting your identity on a wireless network is extremely important. PRIVATE WiFi keeps all mobile devices and laptops protected against hackers on all open WiFi networks.